


StoryCorps: Bucky Barnes and Tony Stark

by hannahrhen



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Fluff, Friendship, M/M, NPR, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark Friendship, StoryCorps, Storytelling, Swearing, Tony Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-19 04:02:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2373779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannahrhen/pseuds/hannahrhen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky gets shoved inside a StoryCorps booth with Tony Stark. Looks like someone's gonna talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	StoryCorps: Bucky Barnes and Tony Stark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [melonbutterfly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonbutterfly/gifts).



> So this came from some tag-spamming I did on [this post](http://hannahrhen.tumblr.com/post/98254814498/beeishappy-stephen-colbert-on-late-night-with). It led to imagining different characters talking to each other inside a [StoryCorps](http://storycorps.org/) booth. 
> 
> Fair warning: I don't have experience with the StoryCorps recording process beyond what is on the StoryCorps site, so I took some liberty imagining the setup.

“I don’t think this is a good idea.” Bucky shifted in the tan plastic chair that exactly matched the one Tony was trying to get comfortable in. Too bad the things seemed specifically designed to make that impossible.

Offering up what he called his “no shit, Sherlock” face, Tony flicked a thumb over his shoulder as he turned again in the seat. “You want to tell that to the brick house outside who’s probably holding the door shut?”

Bucky followed Tony’s gesture to the only exit this recording booth featured, which had to pass through the one-man control booth before sweet, sweet freedom. “I’d try, but the room is soundproofed.” He shook his head. “I think that’s the point, Stark.” When Tony didn’t answer, just scanned the place like he was looking for an alternate exit, Bucky pressed, “And I think it’s already recording.” He didn’t acknowledge the thumbs-up from the skinny kid behind the glass, the one who’d got them settled in and miked up with nervous hands.

(“A year out of NYU, max,” Tony had said, low enough to pass for mercy in Tony Stark’s mind, though Bucky’s pretty damned sure the guy heard it.)

“Oh, I know it’s already recording.” Tony drummed his palms on his thighs--as antsy as the kid, but probably would blow it if Bucky told him to calm down. He looked at the exit again, as if the parameters might’ve changed. “Fucking Renee Montagne and Steve Inskeep are panting to turn this into an NPR segment. And that joint’s been on my shitlist since they stopped making new Car Talks.”

Bucky felt Tony’s attention shift back to him. He pointedly ignored it. Heard instead, “Well, since your boyfriend is holding--”

The reply then was instinct. “Fuck off.”

“Not public-radio-friendly, there.” Tony nodded in the direction of the control booth, where that kid was probably hashmarking the swears. “Less back alley, more Sesame Street, Bucky Bear.” Tony didn’t acknowledge the nod from the booth. “Since _your boyfriend_ is keeping us in here with the power of his imminent disapproval if not an actual bar across the door, I guess we’re stuck. So.” Bucky could practically feel the resignation set in, and, “What did you want to talk about,” was said with about as much enthusiasm as an offer to let Bucky punch him in the stomach.

Bucky frowned at that, because Tony was supposed to ... Tony had the questions. A question. “You--” He dropped off. Looked down through the ends of his hair. Then, “Steve said--”

(Steve said he was _sick of all the damned gripin'_ between them, and he had an idea ... )

Now he knew Tony was looking, even with Bucky’s face hidden, though it took a few seconds for him to relent. “Yeah, okay, fine. He gave me this while he was _confiscating_ my _phone_.” Tony teased a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. “So. This is what He’s a Grand Old Flag wanted me to ask.” He read it quickly, although Bucky was a hundred percent sure Tony already knew what it said. Like he wouldn’t have given himself a preview. Fuckin’ Starks.

“‘What was your first impression,’” Tony said, with a sigh that sounded almost painful. “‘Of me.’ ... Yeah. Thanks, Steve.”

Bucky’s laugh sputtered out of him, unstoppable, because ... well, hell, that was the last thing he expected to hear. It was more like the kind of thing Steve would have teased him with in high school than anything he expected to get as a--

“Yeah, I’m hilarious,” Tony sighed, crumpling the paper in a fist.

“No, no--that’s a great question,” and Bucky threw enough emphasis on the “great” to introduce some much-needed irony to the situation. Like this was a memory he wanted to relive, the day they brought him in. Fuckin’ _Steve._  

“Because, let’s see--the last thing I remember was being surrounded by Thor and the Hulk, some idiot in a metal suit, and Steve lookin’ like--well, let’s just say unhappy, and then someone fuckin’ tranq’d me, and I woke up on a fuckin’ operating table to your ugly face over mine, over my half-disassembled arm, with a screwdriver in your hand, sayin’, ‘Oops.’” Tony’s awkward grimace intensified as Bucky talked. They were both ignoring the flailing arms behind the glass; the kid had probably run out of room for hashmarks.

Bucky didn’t care. “‘ _Oops,_ ’ this genius says. So it wasn’t exactly positive, you know?”

“Oh, come the hell on, Barnes,” Tony said, still more uncomfortable than pissed. “Your arm was killing you. It was literally killing--”

“I know! Steve explained--I know. But you look a lot like your dad--I know you get that a lot,” and it was low, but Bucky was kinda pissed himself, and this wasn’t exactly a memory he wanted to relive. Tony’s face went from a grimace to a sneer, and Bucky was annoyed, but not that annoyed. So he continued, “And I thought--”

Tony looked like he couldn’t stand not interrupting, again, so Bucky held up his hand. “Wait. Hang on, Stark.” He gave the man a minute to breathe out. Let the words stop beatin’ around inside his brain. “I thought ... I thought I was dreamin’. Hallucinatin’ or something, you know?” He moved his hands together in his lap and twisted his fingers around each other. “Imagining being back in the war, with Steve, with Howard, like I was still on someone’s table--someone _else’s_ table,” he clarified, “and my brain was playin' tricks on me. Like none of this--” And he shrugged up his left shoulder, then had to gesture at the whole room. The whole world. “--had ever happened. So I kind of lost it.” Smiled, because he knew this next would cost him. “A little.”

Sure enough, the words beat their way out. “You choked me!”

Bucky snorted. Knew Stark’s tones enough to understand that one. “Hey, like I said. Ugly mug, right there.” Bucky waggled fingers about a foot in front of his own face. “Couldn’t help it.”

There was a pause, and Tony just looked around--at the mics, the insulated walls of the booth. That kid who was now busy typing something into his phone. Everything but Bucky. The next could have been a change in subject, but it wasn’t: “I hate Steve sometimes.”

Bucky huffed. “Yeah. He can be a real dick.” The kid was still texting, and Bucky had a feeling he was telling his girlfriend, boyfriend, mom--who the hell ever--that he had Iron Man and the Winter Soldier at work with him. Photos would come next. They had forty minutes they weren’t gonna use, not if Bucky had anything to say about it, but he would take a few more. “Steve, uh ... he didn’t tell you to ask me what I think of you now, huh?”

And Tony’s eyes cut over, like he was thinking of taking the bait but not fully committed to the plan. Finally played along anyway. “No.”

Bucky just hummed. Took a different tack. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t like your dad much, either, when I first met him,” and he pretended he didn’t see the look of betrayal on Tony’s face--it was so easy to get him riled, too easy, and now that was two Howard Stark mentions in one conversation.

Settling forward, elbows on knees, Tony talked into the silence because he couldn’t help himself. “Okay, so--tell me how my favorite person in the world didn’t live up to your high expectations, Ninotchka.”

Bucky cocked his head. “Wasn’t my cup of tea, let’s just say. Didn’t like what he did to Steve--experimentin’ on him, you know?”

And Tony knew. Tony Stark, who only really experimented on himself. Who looked at Steve sometimes with the faith of a little kid. Looked at him in silence and awe, the same way Bucky--

Yeah. “Anyway, eventually we got on fine. You know.” And Tony still looked unhappy, hunched over himself in that lousy chair, and Bucky could throw him a bone this time: “‘Cause there was one thing we had in common.”

“And what was that? How much you were both going to be on my ass?”

Bucky waited until Tony glanced up and looked him straight in the eye. “Steve. Steve liked us both. Which had to mean somethin', you know.” Raised his eyebrows. "Gotta mean somethin', Stark."

That hosed Tony down a bit, and Bucky got an actual, if small, smile--still coated heavy in bluster, though. “Yeah, yeah. Poor judge of character, Captain America. I hear he kissed Hitler two hundred times.”

Bucky snorted despite himself. Yeah, so--this was the part where someone who wasn’t Bucky would have patted Tony on the shoulder, or just gripped the bone and squeezed a little, but ... to hell with that. If you were gonna be Steve’s friend, you had to take a little ribbing without needin’ a tissue.

Sure enough, Tony just flipped Bucky the bird, absent like it was from sense memory, and asked, “You think he let go of the death hold he has on the door?” He aimed his thumb at that one, deeply coveted exit again.

“Probably worth tryin’. If we can get it cracked open enough, we can try to make a run for it through those tree trunks he calls legs.”

“Good enough.” Tony finally acknowledged the guy behind the glass, who would have some kind of story to tell for at least a few days before everyone else heard it: "Okay, you guys got your donation-drive fodder for the year," and, as Bucky rose to his feet, Tony drew a line across his throat with one finger and added, “Cut.”

**Author's Note:**

> Learn more about the [StoryCorps project](http://storycorps.org/), in which regular people share their stories (often one person interviewing the other) to be recorded and archived.
> 
> Also, if you're inspired to contribute, I created a [StoryCorps collection](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/StoryCorps). Would love to see other people's ideas of what two characters would say to each other. The site includes a list of [great questions](http://storycorps.org/great-questions/).
> 
> As always, thank you for reading, and [find me on tumblr](http://hannahrhen.tumblr.com)!


End file.
